This invention relates to an apparatus for processing elongated vegetable products such as beans and the like and particularly such apparatus for processing a mass of raw beans and removing an end portion.
In the processing of beans and like products, the end of the bean is removed through a suitable automated snipping apparatus. A widely used system includes a rotating drum structure with the mass of beans moving therethrough from one end of the drum to the other end. The pheripery of the drum is a slotted member which permits projection of one end of the bean while preventing movement of the bean otherwise through the cutting slot or opening. A series of cutters is secured over a lower quadrant of the drum, generally the three to six o'clock quadrant and sever the protruding ends of the beans to discharge snipped beans with the ends removed. Generally, the mass of incoming beans are first past through a cluster cutter/presnipper having knife units to break up clusters of beans which normally are created in the collecting and delivery of the beans to the processing end apparatus. The cluster cutter/presnipper and the snipping apparatus may have the same basic snipping structure with the cluster cutter/presnipper having the internal knife units and a special construction to bring the bean clusters into the knife units.
The orientation of the bean within the drum structure of the snipping apparatus is of course significant in order to appropriately locate the beans within the slots and removal of the end. The beans rotate with the drum and drop downwardly. The beans are directed into a vertical plane such that the ends move downwardly into the slotted drum for severing by the exterior knives. Early U.S. Pat. No. 1,882,481 which issued on Oct. 11, 1932 and U.S. Pat. No. 1,990,425 which issued Feb. 5, 1935 discloses internal orienting rods located adjacent the inner surface of the drum. U.S. Pat. No. 2,393,461 which issued Jan. 22, 1946 discloses a drum with internal vanes to pickup the beans and carry them into the upper drum portion. The beans are thrown laterally to engage a vertical corrugated plate which orients the beans vertically such that the beans drop downwardly into the cutting opening. In addition, the beans are distributed over the narrow cutting area of the cutters, namely, the one quadrant of the drum. The diameter of bean processing drums is often on the order of 48 inches. A large percentage of broken, bruised and damaged beans results with present designs because the product falls a long distance at a rapid speed. Various recent systems use other means for continuously reorienting of the drums. For example, other systems use a plurality of axially spaced guide disks such that as the beans carried upwardly by the drum drop downwardly between the axially spaced disks. The spacing is such that the beans move with the principal axis directed in a diametric plane through the drum thereby reorienting of the beans and directing the end downwardly towards the slot in the lower end of the drum. Another apparatus uses an internal rotating drum having an undulated and essentially closed outer surface for moving of the beans in a very specific manner with respect to the outer rotating drum for reorienting of the beans.
Although the prior art systems have been suggested and have found commercial implementation, the complexity, cost and functioning of the apparatus does not provide an optimum bean snipping apparatus and a continuing demand for a commercially and cost effective snipping apparatus for high speed processing of a continous source of beans in a continuous manner exists.